Wind down
Had a nice easy Sunday run as I tapered for the Long Tour. I was very lucky with the weather, watching rain fall elsewhere for most of the run. I picked a route from Standing Stones car park to Lamaload Resevoir then Pym Chair and back via Shining Tor ridge, that maximised the number of paths as yet unrepresented on OpenStreetMap.
A combination of heavy cloud cover and leafy corridors meant that the Garmin nuvi I use for tracking, occasionally let me know that it had "lost satellite reception" . The surprisingly clear feminine voice from the depths of my pack was quite startling, to a runner used to solitude, on the first occasion.
The slightly better weather than last week allowed, at least a poor, photograph of the hills east of Shining in their WWI camouflage. The permissive path from the tea rooms to Torgate Farm is now on the map and was a pleasure to run.
Monday evening meant my local 5.5 miler which was a pleasure as always. The experience was slightly marred by the erosion of the forest floor and broken bottle glass on one of the woodland paths. I met a walker out with his dog and warned him of the broken glass.
Ouch!
I set out for a gentle lunch time run of a couple of miles along the canal on Wednesday. My left leg was stiff as it often is, I waited for it to ease up after a few hundred metres, it didn't. Every footfall jarred for the next hundred metres and then jarred worse for the next hundred. I slowed to a walk and turned back for the office. I had to admit defeat. Truth is the leg injury has been getting steadily worse for eight months.
It seems stupid now even to think that I was going to run 50k+ at the weekend when often I can't walk to the shops without limping the odd step. I've tried just about everything else, all I can think of is a long rest followed by a very slow (first marathon training type) re introduction of running. I rested for nearly two months earlier in the year, this probably wasn't enough and kicking straight in with back to back totals of 35+ miles maybe wasn't a good idea.
I don't know what I will do with myself for the next few months, except sulk when an event date passes. At least I will have time to write about mapping and footpath issues. Maybe I can do a little vigilante cleaning up on local paths.
Good luck to everyone on the Long Tour of Bradwell, hope there's no endless cavalcade of off road vehicles blocking the path this year, watch your step along Stanage edge, and look out for that head height club hidden in the leaves on the way back down to Bradwell.
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